Go Hang a Salami

The food for thought in my head today is, why does lasagna always taste better when it's reheated?  This is not a deep question, but it's also not rhetorical.  It's as serious as the title to this blog is the first half of the most amazing palindrome.

Back in 1993 or so I bought a book entitled, Go Hang a Salami, I'm a Lasagna Hog.  No other book has yet surpassed this miniature ode to palindromes with my favorite food in the title.  I got it as one of my alotted purchases at the Book Fair. 

Do you remember book fairs?  I looooved book fairs.  The big round library at my little brick school would come alive.  Tables would be overflowing with any story imaginable.  And there would always be that one table filled with the "cool" books that had some sort of toy or accessory.  Oh, oh, and remember the Magic Eye books that you would just look at all crosse-eyed until you'd seen every pyramid and butterfly hidden in the crazy zigzag paintings?  Maybe I missed my calling to be an elementary school librarian.  I miss those days. 

At any rate, before I begin daydreaming and googling all my old favorites, there was a point to this writing.  Lasagna tastes better the second day.

You know how I know this?

(Yes, because it's my favorite food)

But you know how I know this today?

Because Miss Nicole the Domestic G made lasagna. 

It seems only fitting that someone who adores the multi-layered dish of perfection as much as I do would actually learn how to make it.  But Costco and Stouffers and Mama H do such a great job already.  I'd been putting it off and off until J-Man informed me we were hosting a coworker for dinner (totally ok) and that this coworker and her boyfriend are vegetarians (uh-oh).

If it hasn't been discussed yet, I'm a pretty big meat-eater.  I was raised in a meat and potatoes kind of family.  One vegetable, one starch, one meat: the equation for dinner.  Even green beans have a teaspoon of bacon grease in them. 

I'm trying to eat healthier these days (golden oreos and reeses eggs not included) so I was up to the challenge.  Vegetarian lasagna it is!  Was. 

A trip to the grocery store, a mess of spinach and mushroom and tomato sauce, a substitution of ricotta for cottage, a lot of "I don't know if I'm doing this right," and possibly a mini anxiety/hunger tantrum and, voila, success.

Or, success enough that the guests ate it and didn't request the back-up plan of takeout.  And success enough that I went to have some more for lunch today.  And now, even more success because for some reason, lasagna just gets better when you reheat it.